I've been mulling how to explain my thoughts on an observation that has become more and more clear over the past few years. I avoid televised news whenever possible. The closest I get to watching the news on broadcast television or cable news networks is when there is something specific that is happening right now that I can't find videos of on the net. Otherwise, whether it is NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, etc. I always get the feeling that the reporting staff is talking down to me and has an agenda they just can't refuse to push upon me.
In the reporting about weather trends, specifically what has been coined as global warming, I am shocked by the blatant disregard for facts. I know. There are lies, damn lies and then statistics (I guess, a sort of fact). Context is irrelevant and facts are what you make of them. The earth is warming and it is due to humans - so we are told to believe. We know that the earth was extremely cold some ten to thirty millennia ago. In order for the polar caps and glaciers to have receded, it must have gotten warmer. This was all without modern human industry. It happened because that was the process nature was going through at the time. Some attribute it to God, others to pure geological evolution and natural event. Either way, man had no control over it and those that were alive at the time were probably hopping up and down doing some sort of rain dance because they had to believe there was a magical force that they could influence through their miniscule and likely irrelevant actions.
Regardless about how you feel about the climate (e.g. pro or contra global warming theory), it is amazing seeing humanity search for the next great religion. When facts are ignored and we succumb to dogma because it just might be true, we are talking about a sort of religion. (I am not attacking religion nor theology and a search for greater meaning in life. I am attacking dogma that amounts to statements that are not open to debate. Religion has this, normal human action is wrought with this, and science is especially prone to this, even though your average scientist claims it is not.) Statistics have been presented on both sides of the argument and, for what appears to be emotional reasons, not logical ones, we have generally taken on the crusade of one side of the debate.
Out with Christianity (or organized religion) and in with dogmatic science. Suddenly our society seems obsessed with what everyone else is doing and not with what they are doing themselves to better their lives and their surroundings. When the news spends 80% of its airtime on images from the paparazzi, how can we claim to be interested in generic information - i.e. knowledge - so that we can make relatively informed decisions? We can't. This obsession must have something to do with the emptiness in our own personal lives. I can't think of any other reason why anyone would spend a majority of their valuable time reading about whether Britney Spears has shaved her head or how bombed she got last night. We are concerned with what others are doing instead of making sure that we are being responsible with our own lives. Couple this voyeurism with the need for a cause and you find topics like global warming at the forefront of every conversation - conversations devoid of depth and devoid of substantial statistics bearing knowledge.
I wonder if I feel like Copernicus or Descartes must have; mind overflowing with pure data about the world around them, yet a refusal of the status quo to accept that there was more to the world than they were being led to believe. I'm not placing myself anywhere near either of the above gentlemen in terms of their sheer genius. I am only making the comparison in terms of their (likely) amazement that people would rather be fed with ideas they can believe without critique, than challenged with thoughts that said not only are we not in control, but nature is much greater than we can possibly fathom. We are yet a speck of sand on a vast ocean of beach and the impact we have on our surroundings is less than what we wish it were. We wish we were powerful and we constantly search for means by which to gain this power - whether religion or science - and we continually fantasize about how powerful we'll be if we only do this or that in a certain specific manner. We cannot accept that we are part of a larger game that cares as much about our actions as a river does a pebble being thrown into the rapids.
How frustrating it must have been to have seen and learned that we know so little and yet are convinced of our power out of sheer arrogance and perhaps, hope.
In the reporting about weather trends, specifically what has been coined as global warming, I am shocked by the blatant disregard for facts. I know. There are lies, damn lies and then statistics (I guess, a sort of fact). Context is irrelevant and facts are what you make of them. The earth is warming and it is due to humans - so we are told to believe. We know that the earth was extremely cold some ten to thirty millennia ago. In order for the polar caps and glaciers to have receded, it must have gotten warmer. This was all without modern human industry. It happened because that was the process nature was going through at the time. Some attribute it to God, others to pure geological evolution and natural event. Either way, man had no control over it and those that were alive at the time were probably hopping up and down doing some sort of rain dance because they had to believe there was a magical force that they could influence through their miniscule and likely irrelevant actions.
Regardless about how you feel about the climate (e.g. pro or contra global warming theory), it is amazing seeing humanity search for the next great religion. When facts are ignored and we succumb to dogma because it just might be true, we are talking about a sort of religion. (I am not attacking religion nor theology and a search for greater meaning in life. I am attacking dogma that amounts to statements that are not open to debate. Religion has this, normal human action is wrought with this, and science is especially prone to this, even though your average scientist claims it is not.) Statistics have been presented on both sides of the argument and, for what appears to be emotional reasons, not logical ones, we have generally taken on the crusade of one side of the debate.
Out with Christianity (or organized religion) and in with dogmatic science. Suddenly our society seems obsessed with what everyone else is doing and not with what they are doing themselves to better their lives and their surroundings. When the news spends 80% of its airtime on images from the paparazzi, how can we claim to be interested in generic information - i.e. knowledge - so that we can make relatively informed decisions? We can't. This obsession must have something to do with the emptiness in our own personal lives. I can't think of any other reason why anyone would spend a majority of their valuable time reading about whether Britney Spears has shaved her head or how bombed she got last night. We are concerned with what others are doing instead of making sure that we are being responsible with our own lives. Couple this voyeurism with the need for a cause and you find topics like global warming at the forefront of every conversation - conversations devoid of depth and devoid of substantial statistics bearing knowledge.
I wonder if I feel like Copernicus or Descartes must have; mind overflowing with pure data about the world around them, yet a refusal of the status quo to accept that there was more to the world than they were being led to believe. I'm not placing myself anywhere near either of the above gentlemen in terms of their sheer genius. I am only making the comparison in terms of their (likely) amazement that people would rather be fed with ideas they can believe without critique, than challenged with thoughts that said not only are we not in control, but nature is much greater than we can possibly fathom. We are yet a speck of sand on a vast ocean of beach and the impact we have on our surroundings is less than what we wish it were. We wish we were powerful and we constantly search for means by which to gain this power - whether religion or science - and we continually fantasize about how powerful we'll be if we only do this or that in a certain specific manner. We cannot accept that we are part of a larger game that cares as much about our actions as a river does a pebble being thrown into the rapids.
How frustrating it must have been to have seen and learned that we know so little and yet are convinced of our power out of sheer arrogance and perhaps, hope.
